Happy 2024!
From the bottom of my heart, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and took time for whatever comforts and nourishes that creative spirit. We’re already 9 days into the new year, and by now many of us have leapt back into the daily grind of juggling work, a family, housekeeping, and other duties. It’s also frosty out there, and daylight is a precious commodity.
As I write this, a massive snow storm looms overhead, and for the next 24 hours, travel will be arduous. For those who made new year resolutions that involve leaving the house, this might inhibit the best intentions. But it’s not the only inhibitor. Forming new habits and resolving to be even better than ever requires dedication, willpower, and an ability to dodge all of those little curveballs that life throws our way. Though admirable, it can be so difficult to switch up our routines and take our resolutions head on. Life intervenes, old habits get in the way of new trials, and sometimes we’re left wondering where our goals and commitment went. It’s so common, there’s a massive self-improvement / self-help industry that thrives off our tendency, as humans, to start and stop the same habits over and over again. Last I checked, that industry, including books, apps, audio, etc., was estimated at $13.4 billion in the US.
That’s big money, and with that big money, comes the guilt. We’ve all felt it. Sometimes we hear it in the back of our minds, shaming us for our lack of initiative, for not stealing time from a good night’s sleep to finish our creative projects. Other times it seizes hold of us as we scroll social media and see others living out the dreams we envisioned for ourselves. This simultaneously induces jealousy and a double-serving of guilt, as we’re guilty for not working overtime to achieve our goals along with the guilt that comes with wasting precious minutes on social apps.
Compound these negative feelings with the annual trotting out of the “saddest day of the year,” also known as “Blue Monday” (which is fake, btw), and early January can be a recipe for extreme stress, pressure, and anguish.
But that guilt is wrong. And so is that multi-billion dollar self-improvement industry. And so are the social media personalities who make us feel bad about ourselves.
All three of those aforementioned stresses share a big commonality — they just recycle tired, old ideas that don’t serve anybody. That guilt? We’ve heard it all our lives. It’s the same voice and the same trio of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and fear of failing that’s been casting a shadow over everything we’ve ever done — from childhood through adulthood. And you know what? You’ve proven it wrong time and again. Think about how much you’ve learned, experienced, and accomplished since that voice first whispered in your ear. It’s often more than we give ourselves credit for.
Anyone who has read a handful of self-help books, listened to some CDs on the way to work, or watched some videos on lunch may notice a pattern. Much of the self-improvement industry is built on the same core ideas, just repackaged for different audiences. For more spiritually leaning people, self-help is often flavored with faith-based allegories and anecdotes. For the business-minded, there’s Dale Carnegie and every business book that has followed. For people who need more enticing packaging, 2006 was the year of The Secret. Guess what? It wasn’t so secret. It was the equivalent of the collegiate expository essay that more or less surmised that we should smile more (and good things will come our way).
And social media? The beauty of social media is that we’re given the opportunity to find our tribe and connect with like-minded folks. The flip side is that we have to sift through the same posts over and over again to find it. Food. Weight loss. Life hacks. Weird dances. It’s like crawling through one of those carnival funhouses as a child, bumping and stumbling over a seemingly endless zig-zagging hallway of obstacles, but there’s a light at the tunnel, so you keep moving. The conceit with social media, however, is that these obstacles are designed to elicit an emotional response, typically the same one again and again, and it’s exhausting.
“You’re (Already) Doing It, Peter”
It’s easy to feel guilt and as though a lack of commitment has resulted in a deep, personal failure. In many ways, the odds are stacked against aspiring artists, with so much out there designed to reinforce these painful feelings in service of “providing the answer” while artists hustle and paddle against the tide.
Somehow, by some powerful manifestation or compulsion, you’ve already put pencil to paper, brush to canvas, or finger to keyboard. As someone who creates, you’ve already taken that step from someone who dreams about it to an artist who beckons those visions into the real world. It’s not a lack of resolve; the answer is within you. It always has been.
Ever watch Hook? If not, the heavily abridged summary is that a grown-up and business-obsessed Peter has to return to Neverland to save his children from Captain Hook. He’s too caught up in reality and has forgotten how to dream, which means he can no longer fly. There’s a scene near the latter half of Steven Spielberg’s over two-hour epic where Peter is eating dinner with the Lost Boys. Though the Lost Boys are gorging away, Peter can’t see the food; he can only see empty bowls and plates. It isn’t until he lets go and lets his mind reconnect with childlike wonder and imagination that he can see the colorful feast before him.
One of the Lost Boys comments, “You’re doing it, Peter.” Then the others chime in, celebrating the idea that the old Peter is back, that the imaginative hero who taught them all how to dream has returned.
Sometimes, the most rebellious and empowering act is to let all those stresses, pressures, and feelings of guilt slip away. Sometimes you need to go back to what sparked that compulsion in the first place, to just let go of the world and dream again. That could mean watching your favorite film. It could be digging out an album you haven’t listened to since high school. It might also mean reconnecting with a part of yourself you haven’t thought about in a long time.
I’m a big believer that we create best when we’re free of the shackles of daily strife. The act of creation is a sacred activity, one that taps into all of ourself as a gift to the world. We just need to remember that the creativity engine is and has always been with us. Sometimes the engine needs that extra crank to keep on firing.
Keep on making the world a better place. I believe in you, and if you ever want to share your projects, feel free to plug them in the comments below.
We’re all in this together,
Scott
P.S. As many of you know, I regularly write comic book reviews and co-host a Batman podcast. Interviewing creative people is one of those conductors that charges me up the most, and I had the pleasure to interview author Robert E. Eliot and editor Lou Tambone recently. Feel free to listen.
Listen to an interview with Lou Tambone, editor of The Man Who Laughs: Exploring the Clown Prince of Crime, here.
Listen to an interview with Robert E. Eliot, author of Nolanverse: Exploring the Greatest Illusion in Movie History, here.
Thanks, Scott. A thoughtful, uplifting read.